Recently a dear friend said, “Things change. Why would you expect them to stay the same?” The question was almost laughable. I haven’t had the luxury of a life that could warrant me expecting things not to change. I’ve fallen from heights so high I still haven’t recovered. In a few blinks of an eye, I’ve gone from decorating my home to sleeping on the floor of my church, from listening to ocean waves off the shores of Monterey to chipping ice off the side mirror of my Jetta in Cleveland. I could get whiplash just thinking about the violent changes of life. But my rabbit hole of thoughts made me realize that while I certainly don’t expect life to stay the same, I do expect people to.

Relationships are tricky. In the beginning, we’re learning to understand and love a person who isn’t fully formed while staggering through our own precarious process of growth. And we get so comfortable with the dynamic we worked so hard to cultivate that it’s frightening to imagine any major shifts. We easily use phrases like, “My best friend is…,” “My mother always…,” and “We would never.” These phrases likely ring true until – as my friend reminded – things change. And no matter which of you is undergoing the change, it’s going to take a heck of a lot of maneuvering to keep the relationship afloat. [Ha! See what I did there?]

I see now that my inability to accept the changes in the people I love has caused much unintended strain. For a myriad of reasons, I never really accept that the person is actually changing as much as in some phase that will eventually end. So, I tell myself that I’m waiting out the “phase” like a good friend. Not realizing that I’m not only dismissing important seasons of growth in my loved one’s life but likely saying several insensitive things in my ignorance. The wise Mary Ann has told me many times (and I paraphrase), “Don’t expect you from other people.” Yet somehow, I’d decided that others aren’t likely to change just because I’m likely to stay the same.

Sigh… so I guess there’s a change I can definitely stand to make!

5 thoughts on “Ch…ch…ch…ch…Changes”

  1. The rumors of myself being wise or of “knowing everything” are an uber-exageration. Being old sometimes makes the things you say sound “wise”. However, I will quote Robert Heinlein in “Stranger in a Strange Land, “I am only an egg”.

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  2. This is such a good point. Each time a person grows, a relationship must change. And we almost always want the person to stay as they are to maintain our confort. Or I suppose sometimes we always want them to change into what would be more convenient for us. I suspect you don’t stay the same either… we just don’t see our own growths. I don’t know, that is an interesting thought. Its rare that I say “the old me would have”… but I am so proud when I can say that!

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    1. It isn’t that I don’t change, but change is difficult for me, so I do it slowly and in small increments. And because I’m ridiculously introspective, I usually understand and broadcast my change from the embryonic stage to its maturity – even the negative changes. But I’m obviously terrible at understanding the unspoken – or undesired – changes in others. I REALLY have to work on that.

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      1. Yea, I think you change SUPER consciously. A lot of people don’t so it is harder to see. But for those that haven’t seen you for a while, I would think it would also come as a big surprise for them that they probably can’t articulate. I think change in general is difficult for everyone. I read once that biologically, if we are “alive” our bodies fear change because it might mean death. Staying the same, to our bodies, means staying alive. I think really difficult changes I resist, resist, resist, and then like an earthquake, I change. For me it feels like a long process as the tension builds and I think about it constantly but for others it probably seems completely out of nowhere.

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